Jonathan Turley Says He Was Swatted, Offers Thoughts And Prayers For Himself

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(Photo by Bonnie Cash-Pool/Getty Images)

Last week, the NY Post reported that “legal scholar Jonathan Turley becomes latest ‘swatting’ victim.”

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While “scholar” seems like a bit of a stretch to describe the GW Law professor as of 2024, this is otherwise a disturbing story and thankfully Turley was all right.

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But when life gives Turley lemons, he makes half-baked observations to any media outlet willing to quote him.

“Yes, I was swatted this evening. It is regrettably a manifestation of our age of rage,” the George Washington University law professor said in a statement on Friday.

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No, it’s not.

The “age of rage” — a hokey catchphrase wholly detached from the reality of the declining incidence of violent crime — might be the most dunderheaded takeaway from the rise of swatting. Put aside for the moment the idea that Americans are somehow “more mad” than in the past, the relevant inquiry when it comes to swatting is “why are people now using police departments as a tool to violently terrorize others when a mean tweet or a punch in the mouth used to do?”

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“This is a crime that flourishes because there is insufficient deterrent,” Turley told the outlet.

A guy whose swatting call led to a man’s death got 20 years in prison! To the extent there’s a deterrence problem here, it’s not in the lack of severity, but the lack of assurance. People think they can call in reports anonymously and never be found, which is both increasingly untrue as a matter of technology and also not something solved by beefing up available sentences or whatever Turley’s advocating in this report.

The deeper issue is that in days gone by, a false police report wouldn’t necessarily cause local law enforcement to descend on a house like Cousin Eddie just kidnapped a millionaire. The comedy of that scene in Christmas Vacation is the absurdity of that response. It doesn’t hit as quite so absurd these days.

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SWAT teams used to be the rare province of the biggest police departments. Now even small towns have SWAT teams showered with military surplus. When armed with a hammer, everything looks like a nail and the scumbags who swat people know they just need to call in a bogus report to get a maximally terrorizing response.

But it’s not fair to heap all the blame on every rural sheriff trying to play a deadly game of “try that in a small town.” Law enforcement loads out like Commander Shepard retaking the Citadel because it’s actually plausible that they’re walking into a military grade standoff. In a country where no one is even surprised anymore to read about somebody holed up with multiple semiautomatics and ammo for days, it’s not surprising that the police responding to these calls demand more lethal equipment and are more skittish about what they’re walking into.

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Swatting is a byproduct of a nation awash in more and more powerful weapons and more and more edgy cops. And that makes these false police reports regrettably a manifestation of our age of failing to confront the disconnect between the text and history of the Second Amendment and the lazy ahistorical interpretation of this Supreme Court.

As it happens, Turley is one of those voices chiding gun restriction advocates for failing to understand “reality.” He’s not necessarily opposed to common sense reform mind you… he just leverages his dwindling credibility to chill everyone into accepting that no common sense reform is actually possible. It’s not a policy problem… it’s the “age of rage” and you can’t solve that, can you?

“Thoughts and prayers” with an academic veneer.

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley becomes latest ‘swatting’ victim after false report of shooting at his home [NY Post]

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Topics

Crime, Guns / Firearms, Jonathan Turley, Law Schools, Police